Arctic Ice Still Defying Alarmists' Predictions

[Rapid Descent]

I said "Haven't the last five months all been the hottest on record? "

Hardly a "claim".

It was something I heard on a BBC weather report so I was a bit dubious about it and it was more of a question.

The BBC are very selective about what they report on global warming. Whenever they report anything alarmist, they promote heavily and do not question anything. They are quick to report anything that promotes global warming and rarely report the other side of the debate; if they do report a sceptical position they usually devote more than half the article to response by an activist.

[Pick It Down]

The BBC are very selective about what they report on global warming. Whenever they report anything alarmist, they promote heavily and do not question anything. They are quick to report anything that promotes global warming and rarely report the other side of the debate; if they do report a sceptical position they usually devote more than half the article to response by an activist.

Richard Black and Roger Harrabin are to blame for this, their VIs are huge and they are all over any environment story. You know what you are going to get when one of them two shows up.

[fluffy666]

Can't we read a few tree rings instead?

The latest view of historical temperatures is graphed below - however it is still using Mannian proxies which have been shown to be problematic.

Wondered how long it's take you to repost that. Although relying on a yet to be published paper by non climatologists is a bit iffy, you could say.

[fluffy666]

Don't you just love the way that climate data is measured and recorded by these pseudo scientists.

You may all be surprised to know that a litre of petrol sold at a supermarket has far more accuracy and traceability of measurement.

The interesting thing is that the 'skeptical' sites went round photographing and classifying all of these sites, and categorising them from good to bad. The problem was, when people computed trends from 'good' or 'bad' sites, the trends were exactly the same - it turns out that the UHI corrections work.

This is why the surface stations people have avoided publishing a paper on the subject.. preferring photographs and insinuation.

[Bloo Loo]

The interesting thing is that the 'skeptical' sites went round photographing and classifying all of these sites, and categorising them from good to bad. The problem was, when people computed trends from 'good' or 'bad' sites, the trends were exactly the same - it turns out that the UHI corrections work.

This is why the surface stations people have avoided publishing a paper on the subject.. preferring photographs and insinuation.

why are we relying on "corrections" when FACTS are so much more reliable.

[fluffy666]

why are we relying on "corrections" when FACTS are so much more reliable.

FACT: Station siting issues have been demonstrated to have no effect on the temperature record.

Fair enough.

[Pick It Down]

The interesting thing is that the 'skeptical' sites went round photographing and classifying all of these sites, and categorising them from good to bad. The problem was, when people computed trends from 'good' or 'bad' sites, the trends were exactly the same - it turns out that the UHI corrections work.

This is why the surface stations people have avoided publishing a paper on the subject.. preferring photographs and insinuation.

Anthony Watts collected the data and should have primacy over its use. That is how science works. He has not yet completed a paper on the issue due to attention on Climategate and there are still some stations needing to be assessed.

Do you think it's OK to steal other's data to pre-empt their paper, even before all the data is in?

[Pick It Down]

Wondered how long it's take you to repost that. Although relying on a yet to be published paper by non climatologists is a bit iffy, you could say.

The calculation of past climate is mainly a statistical study - and those who created this paper are expert stats guys. They came to a different conclusion to climatologists because the climatologists i) didn't do the stats correctly and ii) choose to ignore professional statisticians and standard statisticial methods despite their studies relying heavily on stats.

[fluffy666]

Anthony Watts collected the data and should have primacy over its use. That is how science works. He has not yet completed a paper on the issue due to attention on Climategate and there are still some stations needing to be assessed.

Do you think it's OK to steal other's data to pre-empt their paper, even before all the data is in?

Do you believe in academic openness?

Duck, dodge, evade.. whine..

[Pick It Down]

Do you believe in academic openness?

Duck, dodge, evade.. whine..

I believe that if you spend 4 years collecting data, then you should have the right to first use. Don't you? If people can come along and steal your data, what incentive is there to collect it?

[fluffy666]

I believe that if you spend 4 years collecting data, then you should have the right to first use. Don't you? If people can come along and steal your data, what incentive is there to collect it?

What is your definition of online stealing, then?

[Scunnered]

What is your definition of online stealing, then?

[Rapid Descent]

The interesting thing is that the 'skeptical' sites went round photographing and classifying all of these sites, and categorising them from good to bad. The problem was, when people computed trends from 'good' or 'bad' sites, the trends were exactly the same

Quite wrong. The trends were absolutely NOT the same between the good and the bad stations. The analysis conducted showed that the CRN4/5 stations ("bad" stations) had a large positive bias in the trend compared to the CRN1/2 stations ("good" stations). I can't find plots at the moment but I think the CRN3 stations were similar to CRN1/2.

So your claim the trends are the same is factually incorrect.

What you probably meant to say from your following comment:

- it turns out that the UHI corrections work.

Is that the GISSTEMP trends for the contiguous 48 states are similar to CRN1/2/3, that is, they are lower than the CRN4/5 results.

But you are not being completely honest and providing all of the information.

These data apply to just the US - which has the largest density and best kept station network in the world. I think we can reasonably agree, on the evidence given, that:

1. As evidenced from the difference between CRN1/2 stations and CRN4/5 stations, siting issues ARE important - both from a microsite and UHI perspective (which are different issues and should not be conflated)

2. Where we have a large density of stations, the GISS method of correcting for these problems seems to work.

The important point you are missing is that - the US does not show any kind of unusual warming. While the temperature has warmed in the last few decades, it has only reached the same level as the 1930s.

But the rest of the world, station data is worse and - importantly - much more sparse. Particularly for GISS, which interpolates and extrapolates from remote individual stations over a large area. Now for the US, that isn't a problem - there are loads of stations, and if you have some bad ones, you just swap out the bad for the good. Job done.

But the US is just 2% of the world, and for the only 2% of the world we now have good quality control, there's no unusual warming.

For most of the rest of the world, you don't have the luxury of swapping out bad stations for good, because there just aren't enough stations. And it is unlikely that the quality control in remote places will be as good as the US either. Here, you will have CRN4/5 stations - which we know from the US evidence do have a higher trend - which cannot be swapped out, and will (to some extent) contaminate the global data set.

Watts' work has helped to highlight some of the issues, and will hopefully encourage similar activities in some of the more remote places, where single stations have a much larger effect on the overall result than applies in the US.

I should note at the moment that I agree there is good evidence that the world is warmer at the end of the twentieth century than it was at the beginning. But the surface data are not as reliable as many make it out to be.

[Pick It Down]

Quite wrong. The trends were absolutely NOT the same between the good and the bad stations. The analysis conducted showed that the CRN4/5 stations ("bad" stations) had a large positive bias in the trend compared to the CRN1/2 stations ("good" stations). I can't find plots at the moment but I think the CRN3 stations were similar to CRN1/2.

So your claim the trends are the same is factually incorrect.

What you probably meant to say from your following comment:

Is that the GISSTEMP trends for the contiguous 48 states are similar to CRN1/2/3, that is, they are lower than the CRN4/5 results.

But you are not being completely honest and providing all of the information.

These data apply to just the US - which has the largest density and best kept station network in the world. I think we can reasonably agree, on the evidence given, that:

1. As evidenced from the difference between CRN1/2 stations and CRN4/5 stations, siting issues ARE important - both from a microsite and UHI perspective (which are different issues and should not be conflated)

2. Where we have a large density of stations, the GISS method of correcting for these problems seems to work.

The important point you are missing is that - the US does not show any kind of unusual warming. While the temperature has warmed in the last few decades, it has only reached the same level as the 1930s.

But the rest of the world, station data is worse and - importantly - much more sparse. Particularly for GISS, which interpolates and extrapolates from remote individual stations over a large area. Now for the US, that isn't a problem - there are loads of stations, and if you have some bad ones, you just swap out the bad for the good. Job done.

But the US is just 2% of the world, and for the only 2% of the world we now have good quality control, there's no unusual warming.

For most of the rest of the world, you don't have the luxury of swapping out bad stations for good, because there just aren't enough stations. And it is unlikely that the quality control in remote places will be as good as the US either. Here, you will have CRN4/5 stations - which we know from the US evidence do have a higher trend - which cannot be swapped out, and will (to some extent) contaminate the global data set.

Watts' work has helped to highlight some of the issues, and will hopefully encourage similar activities in some of the more remote places, where single stations have a much larger effect on the overall result than applies in the US.

I should note at the moment that I agree there is good evidence that the world is warmer at the end of the twentieth century than it was at the beginning. But the surface data are not as reliable as many make it out to be.

An excellent post, I thought I'd add the US temperature history from NASA.

[fluffy666]

Quite wrong. The trends were absolutely NOT the same between the good and the bad stations. The analysis conducted showed that the CRN4/5 stations ("bad" stations) had a large positive bias in the trend compared to the CRN1/2 stations ("good" stations). I can't find plots at the moment but I think the CRN3 stations were similar to CRN1/2.

I beg to differ:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Is-the-US-Surface-Temperature-Record-Reliable.html

[Rapid Descent]

I beg to differ:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Is-the-US-Surface-Temperature-Record-Reliable.html

I outlined my argument clearly and simply above. Yet you clearly don't understand the first thing about what I wrote.

The UNADJUSTED CRN4/5 has a significant positive bias.

Your graph shows the data AFTER ADJUSTMENT. (See here for evidence)

But in order to make the adjustments, you need good quality nearby stations. That is how the adjustments work.

The adjustments do work in the US because of the large density of stations. But the US doesn't show the recent warming as anomalous.

So the warming comes from the "rest of the world", where station density is nowhere near the levels of the US network, which will result in many places remaining "unadjusted" simply because there are no nearby stations to use for the adjustments.

So the post you made in no way contradicts anything in my earlier post. In fact, it merely confirms the point I made (that the adjustments do work in the US).

Note also how fluffy666's preferred plot cherry picks post 1950 to avoid showing the warm 1930s in the US? Typical climate science BS. You want the truth? NOAA (who produced the graph) think that

.

[fluffy666]

I outlined my argument clearly and simply above. Yet you clearly don't understand the first thing about what I wrote.

Actually it was more a case of getting bored re-reading pointless 'skeptic' arguments. There are surprisingly few degrees of freedom in the global temperature record, meaning that you can discard a large number of temperature stations with little effect, should you wish. Your claim that the global temperature record (after UHI correction) is biased in some way is insinuation.

[Pick It Down]

Actually it was more a case of getting bored re-reading pointless 'skeptic' arguments. There are surprisingly few degrees of freedom in the global temperature record, meaning that you can discard a large number of temperature stations with little effect, should you wish. Your claim that the global temperature record (after UHI correction) is biased in some way is insinuation.

"Duck, dodge, evade.. whine.. "

[Rapid Descent]

Actually it was more a case of getting bored re-reading pointless 'skeptic' arguments.

If it bores you, my advice would be don't engage.

By engaging without understanding the position of those you are debating, you just look like you have taken a weak position, because your points get knocked back. You'd be better off letting someone who is willing to take the time and effort to understand the issues properly engage in debate.

There are surprisingly few degrees of freedom in the global temperature record, meaning that you can discard a large number of temperature stations with little effect, should you wish.

You can indeed discard lots of stations. So long as those stations are in part of the 7-8% of the globe which is massively oversampled (e.g. the US, parts of western europe, etc. etc.)

If you are in a part of the globe which is undersampled, less so.

You are right in saying there are few degrees of freedom in the temperature record. (Both spatially and temporally - which is why the evidence presented based on this record is so weak). And it requires relatively few high quality stations, uniformly distributed about the globe (with an increase in density towards the equator where spatial correlation drops off more quickly). But there are precious few high quality stations, and those that exist are clustered in a very limited area of the world, often in mid-latitudes (which are not the areas that need high density coverage).

Your claim that the global temperature record (after UHI correction) is biased in some way is insinuation.

Lol, you don't know much about temperature records, that much is clear. Apparently just a few short hours ago you didn't even realise that the CRN4/5 unadjusted data carried a bias. Given that, I suggest you do a bit more research before making sweeping statements.

I didn't say that the global temperature record is biased, but then I don't have to prove that, because I am not making any claims regarding the global temperature claims.

However, if you are making claims about the global temperature series, such as a significant warming, the onus is on you, making the claim, to show that you have correctly estimated confidence intervals and properly accounted for all bias. That's how science works. But your attempt to shift responsibility to show that the temperature series have correctly accounted for a very well known effect is noted.

GISS have now (thanks primarily to Anthony Watts) finally demonstrated that for the US, which accounts for 2% of the globe (approx 6% of land). Unfortunately, the US is atypical of the rest of the world. Having successfully done this, they now just have to show that their methods work on the far more challenging 94% of land.

Once they've finished that, they can try to find the missing heat. Y'know, the heat that it is a "travesty" that they can't locate. Kinda careless.

[Oliver Sutton]

Towards the end of the annual melting season it appears Arctic Ice has once again defied the alarmists' predictions of disappearing completely in summer.

Hopefully now the clique have left the forum we can discuss things like this without facepalms and kittens spoiling the thread. However my original login has been lost in the meantime - mods any chance of sorting that out. I presume someone has took my original login and used it over there therefore getting me banned here.

Doesn't this graph give a better picture of the trend?

[Pick It Down]

Doesn't this graph give a better picture of the trend?

This one puts it into a proper context, which was posted one or two replies into the thread.

[Oliver Sutton]

This one puts it into a proper context, which was posted one or two replies into the thread.

I though the thread was about the arctic?

[Ruffneck]

I though the thread was about the arctic?

one of the three models there is for arctic

[Pick It Down]

I though the thread was about the arctic?

The polar see-saw became relevant when the thread moved on to general climate discussion.

[Oliver Sutton]

The polar see-saw became relevant when the thread moved on to general climate discussion.

You posted a global graph in post 3 before anyone mentioned global or general cliamates.